It was a fresh start on a physical level, a minor metamorphosis. But I was terrified.

Yes, at 33 years of age I was finally getting circumcised, and I couldn’t help but think that having the procedure done when I was an infant could have saved me a hell of a lot of trouble.

I was born in the late 1970s, my brother and most of my cousins had been circumcised at birth, standard practice in our family even though we aren’t Jewish. But by the time I arrived, my family was living in the frontier Alberta town of Fort McMurray, where there was no one around who could safely do it, my parents told me.

It was no big deal. Except three decades later something had changed.

About two years ago, I noticed that my always-tight foreskin had begun to seize up, a fairly common condition known as phimosis.

Sex started getting painful, because foreskins aren’t made for friction. And the tightness began to restrict the flow of urine, turning bathroom breaks into prolonged procedures.

I tried to deal with it myself by applying steroid creams and using skin-stretching techniques my doctor had suggested during a check-up.

That didn’t work. And it was getting worse.

A few months later, it stopped pulling back altogether.

When I again sought medical advice, after about six months of denial and procrastination, the answer was clear: get circumcised.

For obvious reasons, I balked: The idea of letting surgical tools near such a sensitive zone made me queasy, and the thought of living the next stages of my life “exposed” also gave me pause.

Plus, circumcision had been getting a lot of bad press, and I’d read about groups devoted to outlawing the practice for infants. At best, circumcision is considered out-of-style, and at worst, a barbaric violation of human rights.

Foreskin has been elevated to hallowed status in recent years, but for me it had become a nuisance. And with the onset of severe phimosis, mere nuisance was elevated to an entirely new level.

Besides, I know plenty of circumcised men who are happy, healthy and successful. Is a foreskin really that precious?

In August, I made an appointment with a specialist and waited three months for my appointment.

In November, I was given a date for the procedure: Dec. 20.

The procedure lasted about 55 minutes and was done by two doctors—urologist Dr. Paul Torren and a young Jewish doctor who wasn’t keen on being named in this article and a nurse. The surgery was down under the supervision of Sunnybrook Hospital’s Dr. Laurence Klotz.

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The team used local anaesthesia and I was wide awake for the surgery. A few minutes later, I could hear the doctors muttering from behind the temporary surgical tent the nurse had set up prior to freezing.

The doctors cauterized the incision to stop the bleeding. I could hear the bursts of electricity from the small cauterizing device. Thankfully, I couldn’t feel it.

The wound was then sutured using dissolvable stitches and wrapped with compression bandages.

By 11:54, it was finished.

I felt a little woozy when I stood up and saw a buttocks-shaped blood stain on the operating table.

On my way out of the operating room, the young Jewish doctor cracked a joke that took me a minute to get.

“After mine was done, I couldn’t walk for about 18 months,” he said.

The levity was appreciated.

Dr. Klotz told me to take it easy and wrote me a prescription for some painkillers. He also told me that sexual activity was a no-no for six weeks.

The worst was over, or so I thought.

Seeing the wound the second day after my surgery nearly caused me to faint. The whole area was enflamed. Walking, sitting and even sleeping were uncomfortable.

Even getting a nighttime erection during sleep was painful, as the increased blood flow pulled on the sutures. Talk about nightmare scenarios.

The frenulum (the bottom part of the penis) didn’t heal easily and quickly, so I had to use more compression bandages with regular changes.

This has made walking difficult and exercise a distant memory.

The one positive for me in the days after the surgery was the relaxed holiday calendar, which allowed me to lounge around at home in sweat pants and watch television even more than I usually do in the post-Christmas haze.

While I was happy to partake in plenty of turkey and even a few boozy eggnogs last month, when it came to make a New Year’s resolution, I took a pass.

After all, my own metamorphosis had already begun.

Jered Stuffo is a Toronto freelance writer. He can be found on Twitter @jstuffco

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